deKay's Gaming Diary

“So how do you complete this then, eh?”, I hear you ask. I bet you’re thinking I got to the credits with one character and that was it. Well, no – I did it with all 35 characters. All of them.

15 hours later… done!

I also played online a bit over the last week or so, with various people. I’m not very good, so generally lost more fights than I won. Sadly, it wasn’t better skill that beat me – if that were the case I wouldn’t mind. If they blocked my attacks, countered them, punished my mistakes – that’d be fine. But no: they just use Cammy and spam drill/spike/drill/spike/drill/spike until I’m dead. Bah.

Thankfully, there were a few decent fighters who didn’t rely on cheap tactics like this, and those matches were fun.

I’ve also collected almost 400 of the 500 figures in the collection. The instructions say there are 300 though, not 500, so I’m slightly confused. Not sure I’ll get all 500, but you never know.

On Thursday, my 3DS arrived. And with it, was Super Street Fighter IV.

And it is FANTASTIC. It’s just like the 360 version, only in 3D! And I love it. The controls are great, the graphics are impressive, and I’ve completed it three times – with Ken, Fei Long, and Rufus (who is amazing, by the way) already.

I also played it online a few times, winning only one match. I was about to win against a Barcelona Roll-spamming Vega player, but just before landing the winning kick, he rage-quitted on me. Bah.

Well, it’s whole week really, not just a weekend. I have recently played these:

Guitar Hero World Tour (360)
Meh. It’s very Meh now. And Meh isn’t good. Some of the tracks are OK, but very few are excellent. And what’s with all the country and western? Pah.

Street Fighter IV (360)
I’m rubbish. Really rubbish. Even on Easy I’m having difficulty beating Seth. And El Fuerte is the most ridiculous to control character ever, Ever!

Scribblenauts (DS)
Still excellent and hilarious. Funny for mainly the wrong reasons when things don’t happen as expected. On World 8 now, I think.

And the return of my (well, someone else’s, it seems) repaired Wii meant a splurge and the purchase of three downloadable games:

Pilotwings (Wii)
It’s not actually great. In fact, it’s a bit pants. What a shame.

Solomon’s Key (Wii)
Fun platformy-puzzle thing. It’s getting very hard very quickly, though.

“Aha! I Got It!” Escape Game (Wii)
HARDEST POINT AND CLICK GAME EVER. FRUSTRATE.

Been a while since I last played this, but the Street Fighter II table for it was released recently and, in an attempt to break free from the evil clutches of Fallout 3, I gave it a go.

It’s a pretty good table, actually. Better than most of the others in Pinball FX, anyway. It’s difficult to light the lights above the top-left bumpers as they’re hidden, but aside from that it’s very nice. Except Trousers is already above me on the scoretable, beating my score of about 5 million with one approaching 9 million. Boo!!

Hmm. Whereas Alpha 2 was mostly just Alpha with new (or rather, returned) characters and new backgrounds, Alpha 3 is totally new. Totally new fighters, new style, new super combo mechanics, redrawn characters (well, some of them anyway), and new moves.

I played as Ryu, who seems to have gained Ken’s super flaming dragon punch super combo and lost his vacuum hurricane kick, and had a pretty tough time of it actually. Too much blocking and countering for my liking.

It didn’t help that when I finally reached Bison, I died. And do you get to have another crack at him? No. It’s Game Over! Rubbish.

It’s a great game and all, but one fail on the end boss and you have to start the whole game again? Tch.

Erk. This was waaaaay harder than the first game. Especially when I got to Ryu, who seemed capable of countering just about every single attack I tried. In the end, I only beat him by being somewhat cheap, trapping him in the corner, and dragon punching and uppercutting the hell out of him.

I still only barely managed it though – I even thought the final killing blow was a double-KO, but I must have just had a slither of energy bar left.

After competing it, I played for a while longer with some other characters, and then had a go at Dramatic Battle as Ryu and Ken. It’s hard. Way hard. You’d think it wouldn’t be as it’s a two-on-one session, but both of your team share the same energy bar, and often both get hit with the same blows, doubling your damage. Managed to see off Adon, but Sagat was a no-go.

After finishing the first game, I thought I’d have a look through the other titles on the disc. I used to play Alpha 2 a bit a uni too, but not as much as the first one for some reason. It’s still great, and yes, it’s technically better than Alpha, but I think maybe it’s just down to what I knew and loved first. Anyway, I played a few rounds, again as Kenneth for the main part.

And doesn’t Dan look like Steven Seagal? He’s just as crap too.

Then it was onto Alpha 2 Gold. I’d never played it before. Or even heard of it. And the only difference I can perceive is the fact there’s an extra couple of squares on the character select screen to select random characters…

Next up was Alpha 3. Which I’ve only ever played briefly in the arcade. It looks way more polished than the other games, and has a huuuuge character roster. It also has confusing (I didn’t read the manual) “isms” for fighting styles. I have no idea what they do. Ken is still ace.

Finally, it was Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, which wasn’t the Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo sort of game I was expecting it to be. Instead, it’s a super-simplified fighter, with power-up gems, only three attack buttons (punch, kick, special) and Super Deformed characters from all over the Capcom Universe. It is nuts.

I bought the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology pack for the PS2 yesterday, and put it on today for a quick play. Of course, the “quick play” turned into the completion of Alpha with Kenneth. Who is, naturally, the best of all the animals.

I’d forgotten how much I like this game. I used to play it for hours at university on the Saturn – literally hours playing Ken vs Ryu against a flatmate. HOURS. Of Ken vs Ryu. Good grief.